My friend Sarah, who is also our office secretary, just announced her plans to resign and to work instead for a firm closer to her family’s residence. I expected that she would make that decision since the day she told me how strenuous her working so far away from home is for her and her family.

However, it was an unwelcome surprise to our boss since Sarah has been quite an efficient secretary and thus would be very hard to replace. I suggested that he hire a virtual assistant for the meantime, to temporarily eliminate his panic attacks and reduce his worries about finding another good secretary like Mindy.